Vampires
Introduction Vampires (also known as The Cold Ones in Quileute legends) are immortal beings who feed and survive on the blood of humans or animals. Vampires were mistakenly created by an ancient coven of witches, in an attempt to find a weakness for the COTM who at the time were overpopulated and very dangerous. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS REACTION TO SUNLIGHT: The vampires here on NDR do NOT sparkle, and the sun is very hazardous to them. Vampires must take extreme precaution as their bodies are extremely flammable. The only way that a vampire can stay in the sun is if they possess an item enchanted by a witch typically found in the form of jewelry using a gem or crystal. Note: enchanted jewelry is hard for vampires to acquire, as most witches have a distaste for vampires because of their bloodthirsty nature. Credit: The Vampries Diaries/The Originals BEAUTY: The common factor of beauty among vampires is mostly due to this crystalline skin. The perfect smoothness, gloss, and even color of the skin give the illusion of a flawless face. The skin reacts differently to light, creating an angular effect that heightens the perception of beauty. Additionally, the stonelike firmness of the vampire body creates a look similar to muscle, making any size human appear more fit as a vampire. Like humans, vampires are drawn to beauty. When choosing a human for the transformation process, vampires are as likely as humans to be motivated by a beautiful face and body. PALLOR: Pale vampire skin is a product of vampire venom’s transformative process. The venom leeches all pigment from the skin as it changes the human skin into the more indestructible vampire form. Regardless of original ethnicity, a vampire’s skin will be exceptionally pale. The hue varies slightly, with darker-skinned humans having a barely discernible olive tone to their vampire skin, but the light shade remains the same. All forms of skin pigmentation —freckles, moles, birthmarks, age marks, scars, and tattoos—disappear during the transformation. EYE COLOR: While all vampires have similarly pale skin, they can have a certain variety of eye colors. Vampires who haven’t fed for a few weeks will have solidly black irises. Recently fed vampires will have deep red eyes if they drank human blood, and medium gold–colored irises if they drank animal blood. Vampires who have been newly transformed will have very bright red irises, regardless of diet. It is possible to disguise this feature with colored contact lenses, but the lubricant in vampire eyes breaks the contacts down quickly. One pair will last only a few hours. Vampires also universally exhibit dark circles under their eyes. These circles, like the changing irises, denote thirst in a vampire. They appear darker and more obvious when the vampire has not recently fed. TEETH: Vampire teeth appear the same as human teeth; the canines are not longer or more pointed than human canines. However, vampire teeth are unbreakable, razor sharp on their edges, and strong enough to cut through almost any substance, including vampire skin. MOVEMENT: Less noticeable than these physical features is the vampire’s tendency toward stillness. Unlike humans, who grow uncomfortable after holding one physical position for a time, vampires are most comfortable when perfectly motionless. A common vampire reaction to stress is a statue-like immobility. Vampires breathe reflexively, as do humans, but they have no need for oxygen. They are able to consciously stop breathing for an indefinite period, but they find the sensation uncomfortable. Vampires rely on their sense of smell above other senses, similar to many animal predators. The lack of smell is what causes the discomfort from not breathing. PETRIFICATION: Some very old vampires are visibly different from others because of this stillness. If a vampire remains unmoving often enough over thousands of years, dust actually begins to petrify in response to the venom-like liquids that lubricate his eyes and skin. Eventually, a vampire’s skin begins to appear thin and translucent, like the skin of an onion—though the strength of the skin is not compromised. A milky film covers the eyes, making the irises appear pink in color. Again, the vampire’s eyesight is not compromised. FLUIDS: Internally, the vampire’s system contains many venom-based fluids that resemble, and in some cases perform the same function as, the human fluids that were replaced. Only the saliva-like liquid in the vampire’s mouth is venomous. A fluid similar to this venom works as a lubricant between the hard cells of the skin, making movement possible. Another lubricates the vampire’s eyes so they can move easily in their sockets. However, vampires do not produce tears, as tears exist to protect the eye from damage by small foreign objects, and those objects would not be able to harm a vampire’s eye. Throughout the body, this pattern is repeated, with venom-like fluids performing the functions that are still necessary to the vampire. Most notably absent is the circulatory system. Vampires are frozen in the state at which they are transformed. PHYSICAL CHANGE: Vampires are frozen in the state at which they are transformed. They do not grow older, taller, or wider, or experience any other physical change, including unconsciousness (vampires never sleep). Their fingernails and hair do not grow. Their hair does not change color. ABILITIES AND LIMITATIONS A vampire’s physical and mental abilities far exceed those of a human being. Vampires can run in excess of a hundred miles per hour. They are able to lift objects hundreds of times their own weight. Their senses are similarly boosted, giving them the ability to see, hear, and smell things imperceptible to humans. Their skin is harder than granite, rendering their bodies nearly indestructible. Their minds work many times faster than humans’ are capable of, and all vampires have perfect recall. IMMORTALITY: Vampires do not age from the moment their transformation is complete. Vampires have no natural life cycle; they exist in this progressionless status indefinitely. This is a conditional form of immortality, as they can be permanently destroyed by fire. However, their speed and strength make it necessary to incapacitate them before burning them. Only another supernatural creature has the ability to incapacitate a vampire, by tearing her limbs from her body (thus vampires are in no danger from human beings). A vampire who is incapacitated but left unburned has the ability to reconstitute herself. One facet of the absence of aging is that vampires do not develop emotionally or mentally past the age at which they are transformed. A transformed child would remain childlike forever, unable to mature in any aspect. NUTRITION: Vampires do not have a circulatory system. Their bodies are harder than human bodies, but their cells are selectively porous. They receive nutrition only from blood, which, once drunk, is absorbed throughout the body. Blood satiates their thirst and makes them physically stronger, but it is not necessary for life. Vampires cannot starve to death; they only get progressively weaker and thirstier as time goes on. They are not able to digest solid food. If a vampire swallows a solid as a subterfuge, that substance will sit in his stomach until he forces it back out through his mouth. Human blood is the most appealing to vampires—and hardest to resist. However, they can receive the same nutritional strength from animal blood. Vampires do not need to feed as often as humans do; drinking the blood of one human is enough to satiate a mature vampire for a week or two. SUPERNATURAL ABILITIES Most vampires find their key personality characteristics intensified by the vampire transformation in the same way their physical abilities are strengthened, but relatively few have abilities that can be classified as supernatural. More common would be a human with a love of learning becoming a vampire with an insatiable scholarly curiosity, or a human with a deep value for human life becoming a vampire with the strength to avoid human blood. But a few vampires do develop additional abilities that go beyond the natural. These extra abilities are due to psychic gifts in the original human that are intensified in the resulting vampire. For example, a human who was very sensitive to other people’s moods might develop the vampire ability to read thoughts or influence emotions. A human who had some limited precognition might develop into a vampire with a strong ability to see the future. A human with a good instinct for hunting might become a powerful vampire tracker. The proportion of supernaturally talented vampires to “normal” vampires is greater than the proportion of psychically gifted humans to “normal” humans. This is due to the same factor of temperament that results in more beautiful humans being selected to become vampires. Vampires are also drawn to gifted humans when they look to create companions. Some vampires actively seek out the gifted in the hope of utilizing that extra ability in their coven. NEWBORN VAMPIRES A newborn vampire—defined as any vampire who is less than one year from his date of transformation—is different from a more mature vampire in behavior and appearance. The newborn is plagued by an unrelenting thirst and will feed as often as possible. The thirst is so maddening in the first year that most newborns are more animalistic and wild than their older counterparts. They are marked as physically different by their vibrantly crimson irises, though in other ways they look the same as mature vampires. Their behavior is more diverse than their appearance. As they age, their behavior generally becomes more rational and constant. THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS The transformation from human to vampire begins with a vampire bite. Once the venom coating the vampire’s teeth enters the bloodstream of a human, it moves through the human’s body, changing each cell as it passes. The spread of the venom is swift, but the reconstruction of the cells takes time. This process is excruciatingly painful, comparable to the feeling of being burned alive. The process lasts for roughly two to three days, depending on how much venom is present in the circulatory system and how close to the heart it entered. There is no way to circumvent the burning with painkillers; the most narcotics can do is immobilize the body. One benefit to the human is that vampire venom is capable of repairing all kinds of damage to the body. A human who had sustained a crippling injury would be made whole again as a vampire. Venom does have limits, though; it could not, for example, regrow a lost limb. Only vampires with a great deal of self-control are able to remain focused enough to bite a human and then let him live long enough for the venom to effect the change. The transformation is difficult from the vampire perspective as well. Even mature vampires have trouble resisting flowing human blood. The scent affects them as it does sharks; they can go into a feeding frenzy. For this reason, vampires tend to not hunt in packs. During the irrational frenzy, members of a coven are likely to turn on one another in competition for the blood. The taste of human blood makes it even harder for the vampire to resist. It is nearly impossible for a vampire to not drain the human—thus killing him or her—once the vampire has tasted blood. Only vampires with a great deal of self-control are able to remain focused enough to bite a human and then let him live long enough for the venom to effect the change. SINGERS: There is another factor that can complicate this process for the vampire. The smell of each human is different, and certain humans can smell more appetizing than is usual to vampires. The more appealing any human’s scent (and taste) is to a vampire, the more difficult it will be for that vampire to bite the human and still leave him alive. Infrequently, a specific human will smell nearly irresistible to a specific vampire. That human is known as a “singer” among vampires, because his or her blood “sings” for the vampire in question. Singers are individual phenomena; a person whose blood sings for one vampire will not have the same effect on all vampires. While there are some humans whose scents are more appealing to vampires in general, that appeal does not reach the level of a singer. Singers are considered by most vampires to be a great find, the drinking of whose blood is an experience to be savored.